There is a difference between relevance and survival. Chevrolet, for example, is a surviving, but irrelevant company who will be around a long time because they are huge and have a huge customer base.
Irrelevant? Come on dude. MS is hardly irrelevant, and hardly having a hard time surviving. What was it they make like 250 (or 500) million every two weeks? They are surviving and the are relevant and they are a big market player. There is no question MS has been here, is here and will continue to be here for a very long time. Just because you (and others) may not like MS does not mean they dont have tons of ingenious/creative people working for them.
You will get your machine that is dual compatible (and legacy compatible), you will get your machine that is under $150 but you probably won't get your wish for DRM to go away. So unless you plan on never upgrading you may want to let go on that requirement (eventually you may have to if you want to watch any new legit bought DVD). We may not like DRM but try convincing a law maker when the opposing argument "We have 100% proof that people pirate our material, this slows them down. Will it stop every pirate - no, but if it stops some from stealing then we need it." Really, our argument against that is very weak...the only argument we can honestly have is "stop putting spyware on our computers. Stop tracking our computer each time we put our legit owned DVD into the system. And stop trying to prosecute someone who made a legit copy of their DVD".
Come on, MS doomed? Is the other side of the picket sign "End of the world"? MS is huge, they have a HUGE customer base. They are not going out of business anytime soon. They have TONS and TONS of highly qualified techies who are working to make new products that MANY people will buy.
Sure they are, if it is FOSS they are giving away their software design for free. Also, if their software is FOSS, someone might take their latest trick that makes their video card better and then stick it into their software and say "hey look our new video card uses the same tech as nvidia but it's half the price." Come on, you know that is their concern - and you know it is a valid one.
Hence the point of open sourcing it and providing the documentation, when you have the docs and the source you have no need to reverse engineer the system.
Invest millions of *YOUR* dollars into a particular product and then tell me you are willing to give it to the world for free....do this and let's see how long you are in business. People seem to neglect that very fact - nVidia/ATI spends a heck of a lot money on this stuff. I totally understand what they want to remain closed source.
Firstly that is a very arrogant approach, some of the best developers in the world work on open source stuff, saying it is to hard is just stupid. As for customers not asking for open-source drivers, all I can say is huh? There have been dozens of calls over the years for drivers to be open sourced!
Just because some of the best developers in the world work on open source does not make it an easy task to reverse engineer closed source material. There may be things that no matter how much reverse engineering you do (within the limits of what is available) you still will not be able to get the full results. Also, we run into a two other issues that I can think of:
1) If it takes so long to reverse engineer and then create a new driver that can be equal or better to the closed source version - by the time this is done, that driver may be way out of date. Who wants something that is one to two years old in an industry where the new models come out every 3-6 months.
2) Because most open source projects are based on people working for free, they are people who are spending some of their own time after other obligations (work, family, school, etc.) They do not have the immense funding as a corporation - and while they are working hard the resources are just not as great for them.
Open source is great, but it does get drawbacks from lack of funding.
I thought you weren't allowed to write closed source Linux code if the code is derived from open source linux stuff (or maybe just the kernal). If that is the case, there is nothing saying it has to work the other way around. Would it be nice, sure, but if nVidia and ATI start supporting Linux you will see more people using it. Imagine an OS that isn't as big of a hog as Windows that can run the latest and greatest games? The first step is to make sure the hardware is compatable...the gaming companies will fall into place once they can get their games to run on this OS.
Michael: "That's alright little buddy, I know you can" [Pushes button to do STUPID ass maneouver]
Also, "Little buddy" does Michael not realize that he is a human, 6'4, probably about 180lbs (David Hasselhoff is kinda lankey) talking to a car that you know - weighs a lot - especially with all the toys it has built into it.
Ohhhh, "haha" Ok if it was meant as a joke then that is fine (e-motes help).:)~ Sometimes people will mod funny posts as informative. That is because funny mods don't increase your karma and some people are offended that it does not do so, so they mod informative (or some other such).
I'm pretty sure you've lost his sentiment, and you've definitly lost the sentiment of what "white power" slogan conotates.
A better option would be for him to keep his laptop on low volume (or use head phones...frankly I don't want to hear anything coming out of someones laptop - be it racist or just the sound of someone logging in).
The slogan "white power" is almost entirely used in a racist fashion - in fact I can't remember an instance where it isn't unless you are just trying to make fun of people who utilize the term - which are racists.
Now if you were trying to be sarcastic/funny - that plane flew over my head - but since you weren't modded funny - i think that plane actually never took off.
Moron moderator. How can the above post be off-topic when it replies to a person who says MS is a monopoly...this post directly responds to them. Read before you moderate - really if you do not want to do that much at least, then opt-out of being a moderator. Being a moderator is not about "just randomly click" it is about putting in that extra few minutes.
I think the case would really have much, much more to do with the invasion of privacy used to obtain IPs and/or the extortion in the form of profiling their lawsuits (and ALWAYS settling) so that the defendants cannot possibly hope to afford legal representation.
But I guess that if you honestly believe ANY lawyer on God's green Earth actually speaks like that you hadn't considered these possiblities.
1) Invasion of privacy - if your IP provider sells your info, your beef is with them, not the **AA. You sue the IP provider, unless (which they probably all do) have provisions saying they can and will give your info away at their whim. But even if you were correct and the *AA did something wrong - each case on it's on basis. The **AA would sue you for pirating and you could sue them for invasion of privacy. But really, nobody has done it (or at least been successful) at targeting the **AA for this because there is no case there. You would, again, have to go after your IP (unless they have a clause in the contract allowing them to do so, or the **AA came with a warrant). Maybe someone could clarify this. I do not want to speak, wiht 100% assurance someone hasn't sued and won for this since it COULD have happened. Just to make another note: When i said nobody has targetted the **AA. Well someone might say "that is because nobody can afford to"...trust me, there are PLENTY of lawyers who would pro-bono sue the **AA if they thought they had a valid case. There would be a line of them.
2) They are not extorting anything. They are saying "Give us XYZ dollars, and admit you did something wrong or we are going to sue you into oblivion AND press charges against you so you have to face criminal charges. By the way our lawyers *as well as your lawyers* are agrreing with us, and we will sue you for XYZ dollars to the Nth power if you don't comply." That is not extortion that is giving someone an option - which they do not have to do. If they were so evil they wouldn't give people the option. They would just sue them for some insane amount, then press charges and the gov't would take over with jail time and fines that could range in the millions. Settling is NOT illegal, and in fact the courts would PREFER that people settle out of court. It is not only legal, but it is encouraged. It saves time on everyones side. It saves money on everyones side (including the tax payers who need to pay for judges, courthouse, etc). If you are comitting a crime (and pirating *IS* a federal crime) then you can get sued...and if you cannot afford a lawyer that is really YOUR problem. You cannot blame the **AA because the person who is uploading music (illegally) can barely afford to pay his electricity bill, let alone a lawyer...As the saying goes "If you don't want to do the time, don't do the crime".
Then MS is just THE largest member of an oligopolistic market where the main two players are MS and Apple
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_formhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligopoly
Lets see...
Seller Entry Barriers - yes...check
Seller Number - few...check
Buyer Entry Barriers - no...check
Buyer Number - many...check
I will agree with the oligopoly, but this is where I disagree:
Sell Entry Barrier - Technically EVERY market has some kind of barrier. In the case of the OS market, the only barrier is if you are capable of making your own code. So - no it is not a true barrier. When they refer to barriers they mean restrictions like government (i.e. if I want to make a nuclear power plant i have to get government approval..that is a restriction). So you need to tell me what these barriers are
Buyer Number - many check??? Please explain. Buyer is not a barrier to entry. Barrier to entry is to get into the market...if your product does not sell that is not a barrier, that is because your product failed to sell.
You are confusing the textbook definition of perfect or pure monopoly (which Microsoft is not) with the textbook definition of monopoly (which Microsoft is). When a market is characterized by a single dominant seller with the power to set prices due to barriers to entry, the dominant firm is still considered a monopolist even though there may be several small competitors. In the pure case, obviously, the smaller firms don't exist. This distinction is made in most every microeconomics and industrial organization textbook.
Except none of the macro/micro text books (at least three) that I have read said Pure Monopoly vs Monopoly... In fact they all just said Monopoly, and Oligopoly (which you could argue is the car manufacturers). Simple put - barrier to entry for the OS market is very little. All you need is the brainpower to produce the OS. Then you can give it, sell it, etc...oh wait Linus already did this we call it Linux and while not a dominent OS, it is an an OS and it is available for anyone who wants to use it - for free. And last I heard...that Dell/HP/Sony/Toshiba/IBM/etc computer I bought with windows...I can format it and stick Linux on it. And if I don't want to buy a copy of windows there are plenty of computer manufacturers that will sell you a clean OS...some will even sell it to you with Linux. Hell, Microcenter (small chain on the east cost), has been selling bare bones systems for YEARS - without ANY OS.
Funny - that is how we would like it to go down...but the **AA has a fair legal argument. You download/upload their music you are breaking the law. Here, go view a DVD that was actually produced (not pirated) and read the warning at the start. It is the big one that says it is blurb that says federal law prohibits unauthorized viewing/copying and is punishble by jail, fine or both. So the troll is yours - funny - but still a troll.
I call BS, there are legal arguments to be made in the matter. It's not a matter of the legality of piracy, but the proof that can be questioned in nine out of ten cases. I'd like for these RIAA attorneys to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the charges are accurate in these cases. First of all, the amounts are questionable. I don't think $750 per song shared is a reasonable assumption of loss. There's no telling how much money would've actually been made had the person not shared the song. For the first thing, you can't assume that everyone that downloaded the song would've bought it. You also can't assume that every time a person downloaded a portion of a song, that this is legally the same as downloading the whole thing. Even if you charge $1 per song downloaded, or $1 per shared copy distributed, it's hard to actually come up with concrete numbers in these cases. This is a court of law, they have to prove losses, not speculate, and I think this is where the RIAA can definitely be challenged.
Civil cases do not require "beyond a reasonable doubt" - that is for criminal cases. If you are going to talk about the law then at least correctly speak of the most basic requirement for proof in civl and criminal. Now, going on beyond that little thing, the attorneys are allowed to sue someone for pirating and that is what they do. Actually we are allowed to sue someone for anything, though you can counter-sue for frivolous lawsuits...while we hate the **AA, their suits are not frivolous. They have LOTS of legal backing. It is up to a judge/jury to figure out if the plaintiff is correct and by how much.
Since the RIAA/MPAA goes against people who give access to their servers (basically the people sharing the music, not downloading the music - unless I missed a case) I think it is VERY reasonable at 750$ per song. First and foremost it is never an even ratio when talking about penalties. When you break the law and you are paying for damages there are two - the base costs and the punitive damages. The base costs is the actual costs "We know you gave away 100 songs and at 1$/song that is $100). The punitive cost "For your malicious acts, you are being penalized an additional $50/song. If I setup a computer that ran 24/7 for a year - it is really not unreasonable that the songs would be downloaded a few hundred times...the fact they are ONLY charging 750$ is CHEAP! *You* may set the price at $1/song/download - but we are talking punitive damages for breaking the law which has historically jacked up the price.
There is no doubt that they lose money. You share one song and the sellers lost money on that one song. The jacked up prices are punitive damages. If you want to argue that punitive damages are not cool, then you just joined every single doctor/health insurer in the nation.
From a judges statement they participated in monopolistic actions. And frankly, I could care less if a judge says heroin is healthy and doing it twice a day will make your skin pale, and vibrant. Just cause a judge says something does not make it so. Let us not be too much of robots willing to bend to the word of one guy. The text-book definition of monopoly has not been violated...is what they did wrong and illegal - sure, is it a monopoly pfft - no it isn't. I don't love MS, I don't hate MS. I use some of their products and I use other OS just as well. I like competition, but these guys are not a monopoly...they will be a monopoly when they are the ONLY OS providers on the market.
Because monopoly means one, and well since I have the option of getting Mac OS, Linux OS, Unix OS, FreeBSD OS, etc then there really is no monopoly.
Businesses are allowed to encourage (ask) their vendors to only utilize their products - nothing is wrong with this. They can offer money and other incentives (i.e. for every copy of my product that you sell, I will give you a free apple). It becomes wrong when they use methods such as "only use our product, which is the number one product anyhow, or we will pull it from your shelves and you will lose 80% of your customer base".
Microsoft is recruiting two 'feet on the street' personnel whose role will be to provide proactive assistance during customer visits, and help you get the value proposition for pre-installed software and related services. Give us a call and let's get those feet walking
Two whole people. And they need to be called. So MS is offering it as a service and someone has to notify them. OK so I order my barebones PC and hope the company I bought it from doesnt call MS UK. And if two people show up to my door unannounced - they will receive the short end of my bobby stick (since UK are not allowed to carry guns if i am not mistaken) or I will press charges for tresspassing and have a restraining order issued.
I can't wait for someone to make a stand against them in court.
Anti-**AA lawyer "Your honor, I am making a stand in court"
Judge - "What is your stance"
Anti-**AA lawyer "To put restrictions on the **AA, a group who malignantly, vilely, evily, uncaringly, and in a mean spirited fashion sue people who pirate music/movies"
Judge - "Isn't pirating illegal, and punishable by law"
Anti-**AA lawyer "Well yes but..."
Judge - "Whats your point son"
Anti-**AA lawyer "The **AA do it malignantly, vilely, evily, uncaringly, and in a mean spirited fashion"
-Dead silence fills the court room.
Judge - "Get out"
This should be clear. "Which has" is singular, whereas "groups" is plural, so it couldn't be the antecedent. "The US" is singular, so it must have the veto.
Now don't complain about the fact that "US" is an abbreviation for "United States". It's singular, I tell you.
I am sure you are correct (not an English major), but what if all of the Christian Groups are given one veto? I still say it is a poorly worded statement. I am not an English expert, but I am above the average Joe. If it confused me, it probably confused others. Another way to look at it: in the UN the United States (your last sentence was funny) is given one vote. The United States represents a lot of people, and a lot of groups.
Is the original statement correct? As you pointed out, yes. Is it confusing, yes. Could it have been worded in a clearer fashion, yes.:)
Pressure from conservative Christian groups in the US, which has a veto over the internet addressing system
Who has the veto power? Christian groups or the US? This sentence is confusing, though I would hope they meant US and not Christian.
Why are Christian groups opposed to this? I would think they would like this "great now we can just block anyone from.xxx so we don't get their heathen, unholy smut on our computers." I wouldn't mind having an.xxx domain and relegating all the pr0n sites there.
How can in one instance be: MS Gives 60-Day Deadline to Web Devs
And the next few lines it is: Microsoft has gotten a one-time, 60-day extension in which developers and companies can try to re-engineer their Web pages
See the headline is to draw our attention because it is the big, bad MS...but according to the body it is really the gov't was granting MS a chance to modify websites...MS is not giving a deadline to Web Devs, the courts are.... Bad journalism.
20 MBPs? That is really really really weak for any kind of enterprise level...even for backing up files that is weak....At 1.6 TB it would take a HELL of a long time to back-up all that data....generally companies, when they backup, want to be able to do it nightly within an hour or two. Obviously live back-ups can occur, but that is not as neat.
Slashdot Mirror
There is a difference between relevance and survival. Chevrolet, for example, is a surviving, but irrelevant company who will be around a long time because they are huge and have a huge customer base.
Irrelevant? Come on dude. MS is hardly irrelevant, and hardly having a hard time surviving. What was it they make like 250 (or 500) million every two weeks? They are surviving and the are relevant and they are a big market player. There is no question MS has been here, is here and will continue to be here for a very long time. Just because you (and others) may not like MS does not mean they dont have tons of ingenious/creative people working for them.
You will get your machine that is dual compatible (and legacy compatible), you will get your machine that is under $150 but you probably won't get your wish for DRM to go away. So unless you plan on never upgrading you may want to let go on that requirement (eventually you may have to if you want to watch any new legit bought DVD). We may not like DRM but try convincing a law maker when the opposing argument "We have 100% proof that people pirate our material, this slows them down. Will it stop every pirate - no, but if it stops some from stealing then we need it." Really, our argument against that is very weak...the only argument we can honestly have is "stop putting spyware on our computers. Stop tracking our computer each time we put our legit owned DVD into the system. And stop trying to prosecute someone who made a legit copy of their DVD".
Come on, MS doomed? Is the other side of the picket sign "End of the world"? MS is huge, they have a HUGE customer base. They are not going out of business anytime soon. They have TONS and TONS of highly qualified techies who are working to make new products that MANY people will buy.
Sure they are, if it is FOSS they are giving away their software design for free. Also, if their software is FOSS, someone might take their latest trick that makes their video card better and then stick it into their software and say "hey look our new video card uses the same tech as nvidia but it's half the price." Come on, you know that is their concern - and you know it is a valid one.
Hence the point of open sourcing it and providing the documentation, when you have the docs and the source you have no need to reverse engineer the system.
Invest millions of *YOUR* dollars into a particular product and then tell me you are willing to give it to the world for free....do this and let's see how long you are in business. People seem to neglect that very fact - nVidia/ATI spends a heck of a lot money on this stuff. I totally understand what they want to remain closed source.
Firstly that is a very arrogant approach, some of the best developers in the world work on open source stuff, saying it is to hard is just stupid. As for customers not asking for open-source drivers, all I can say is huh? There have been dozens of calls over the years for drivers to be open sourced!
Just because some of the best developers in the world work on open source does not make it an easy task to reverse engineer closed source material. There may be things that no matter how much reverse engineering you do (within the limits of what is available) you still will not be able to get the full results. Also, we run into a two other issues that I can think of:
1) If it takes so long to reverse engineer and then create a new driver that can be equal or better to the closed source version - by the time this is done, that driver may be way out of date. Who wants something that is one to two years old in an industry where the new models come out every 3-6 months.
2) Because most open source projects are based on people working for free, they are people who are spending some of their own time after other obligations (work, family, school, etc.) They do not have the immense funding as a corporation - and while they are working hard the resources are just not as great for them.
Open source is great, but it does get drawbacks from lack of funding.
I thought you weren't allowed to write closed source Linux code if the code is derived from open source linux stuff (or maybe just the kernal). If that is the case, there is nothing saying it has to work the other way around. Would it be nice, sure, but if nVidia and ATI start supporting Linux you will see more people using it. Imagine an OS that isn't as big of a hog as Windows that can run the latest and greatest games? The first step is to make sure the hardware is compatable...the gaming companies will fall into place once they can get their games to run on this OS.
KITT: "Michael, I don't think I can do that"
Michael: "That's alright little buddy, I know you can" [Pushes button to do STUPID ass maneouver]
Also, "Little buddy" does Michael not realize that he is a human, 6'4, probably about 180lbs (David Hasselhoff is kinda lankey) talking to a car that you know - weighs a lot - especially with all the toys it has built into it.
Ohhhh, "haha" Ok if it was meant as a joke then that is fine (e-motes help). :)~ Sometimes people will mod funny posts as informative. That is because funny mods don't increase your karma and some people are offended that it does not do so, so they mod informative (or some other such).
I'm pretty sure you've lost his sentiment, and you've definitly lost the sentiment of what "white power" slogan conotates.
A better option would be for him to keep his laptop on low volume (or use head phones...frankly I don't want to hear anything coming out of someones laptop - be it racist or just the sound of someone logging in).
The slogan "white power" is almost entirely used in a racist fashion - in fact I can't remember an instance where it isn't unless you are just trying to make fun of people who utilize the term - which are racists.
Now if you were trying to be sarcastic/funny - that plane flew over my head - but since you weren't modded funny - i think that plane actually never took off.
Moron moderator. How can the above post be off-topic when it replies to a person who says MS is a monopoly...this post directly responds to them. Read before you moderate - really if you do not want to do that much at least, then opt-out of being a moderator. Being a moderator is not about "just randomly click" it is about putting in that extra few minutes.
I think the case would really have much, much more to do with the invasion of privacy used to obtain IPs and/or the extortion in the form of profiling their lawsuits (and ALWAYS settling) so that the defendants cannot possibly hope to afford legal representation. But I guess that if you honestly believe ANY lawyer on God's green Earth actually speaks like that you hadn't considered these possiblities.
1) Invasion of privacy - if your IP provider sells your info, your beef is with them, not the **AA. You sue the IP provider, unless (which they probably all do) have provisions saying they can and will give your info away at their whim. But even if you were correct and the *AA did something wrong - each case on it's on basis. The **AA would sue you for pirating and you could sue them for invasion of privacy. But really, nobody has done it (or at least been successful) at targeting the **AA for this because there is no case there. You would, again, have to go after your IP (unless they have a clause in the contract allowing them to do so, or the **AA came with a warrant). Maybe someone could clarify this. I do not want to speak, wiht 100% assurance someone hasn't sued and won for this since it COULD have happened. Just to make another note: When i said nobody has targetted the **AA. Well someone might say "that is because nobody can afford to"...trust me, there are PLENTY of lawyers who would pro-bono sue the **AA if they thought they had a valid case. There would be a line of them.
2) They are not extorting anything. They are saying "Give us XYZ dollars, and admit you did something wrong or we are going to sue you into oblivion AND press charges against you so you have to face criminal charges. By the way our lawyers *as well as your lawyers* are agrreing with us, and we will sue you for XYZ dollars to the Nth power if you don't comply." That is not extortion that is giving someone an option - which they do not have to do. If they were so evil they wouldn't give people the option. They would just sue them for some insane amount, then press charges and the gov't would take over with jail time and fines that could range in the millions. Settling is NOT illegal, and in fact the courts would PREFER that people settle out of court. It is not only legal, but it is encouraged. It saves time on everyones side. It saves money on everyones side (including the tax payers who need to pay for judges, courthouse, etc). If you are comitting a crime (and pirating *IS* a federal crime) then you can get sued...and if you cannot afford a lawyer that is really YOUR problem. You cannot blame the **AA because the person who is uploading music (illegally) can barely afford to pay his electricity bill, let alone a lawyer...As the saying goes "If you don't want to do the time, don't do the crime".
Then MS is just THE largest member of an oligopolistic market where the main two players are MS and Apple http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_form http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligopoly Lets see... Seller Entry Barriers - yes...check Seller Number - few...check Buyer Entry Barriers - no...check Buyer Number - many...check
I will agree with the oligopoly, but this is where I disagree:
Sell Entry Barrier - Technically EVERY market has some kind of barrier. In the case of the OS market, the only barrier is if you are capable of making your own code. So - no it is not a true barrier. When they refer to barriers they mean restrictions like government (i.e. if I want to make a nuclear power plant i have to get government approval..that is a restriction). So you need to tell me what these barriers are
Buyer Number - many check??? Please explain. Buyer is not a barrier to entry. Barrier to entry is to get into the market...if your product does not sell that is not a barrier, that is because your product failed to sell.
You also forgot to mention Linux and Unix.
You are confusing the textbook definition of perfect or pure monopoly (which Microsoft is not) with the textbook definition of monopoly (which Microsoft is). When a market is characterized by a single dominant seller with the power to set prices due to barriers to entry, the dominant firm is still considered a monopolist even though there may be several small competitors. In the pure case, obviously, the smaller firms don't exist. This distinction is made in most every microeconomics and industrial organization textbook.
Except none of the macro/micro text books (at least three) that I have read said Pure Monopoly vs Monopoly... In fact they all just said Monopoly, and Oligopoly (which you could argue is the car manufacturers). Simple put - barrier to entry for the OS market is very little. All you need is the brainpower to produce the OS. Then you can give it, sell it, etc...oh wait Linus already did this we call it Linux and while not a dominent OS, it is an an OS and it is available for anyone who wants to use it - for free. And last I heard...that Dell/HP/Sony/Toshiba/IBM/etc computer I bought with windows...I can format it and stick Linux on it. And if I don't want to buy a copy of windows there are plenty of computer manufacturers that will sell you a clean OS...some will even sell it to you with Linux. Hell, Microcenter (small chain on the east cost), has been selling bare bones systems for YEARS - without ANY OS.
Funny - that is how we would like it to go down...but the **AA has a fair legal argument. You download/upload their music you are breaking the law. Here, go view a DVD that was actually produced (not pirated) and read the warning at the start. It is the big one that says it is blurb that says federal law prohibits unauthorized viewing/copying and is punishble by jail, fine or both. So the troll is yours - funny - but still a troll.
I call BS, there are legal arguments to be made in the matter. It's not a matter of the legality of piracy, but the proof that can be questioned in nine out of ten cases. I'd like for these RIAA attorneys to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the charges are accurate in these cases. First of all, the amounts are questionable. I don't think $750 per song shared is a reasonable assumption of loss. There's no telling how much money would've actually been made had the person not shared the song. For the first thing, you can't assume that everyone that downloaded the song would've bought it. You also can't assume that every time a person downloaded a portion of a song, that this is legally the same as downloading the whole thing. Even if you charge $1 per song downloaded, or $1 per shared copy distributed, it's hard to actually come up with concrete numbers in these cases. This is a court of law, they have to prove losses, not speculate, and I think this is where the RIAA can definitely be challenged.
Civil cases do not require "beyond a reasonable doubt" - that is for criminal cases. If you are going to talk about the law then at least correctly speak of the most basic requirement for proof in civl and criminal. Now, going on beyond that little thing, the attorneys are allowed to sue someone for pirating and that is what they do. Actually we are allowed to sue someone for anything, though you can counter-sue for frivolous lawsuits...while we hate the **AA, their suits are not frivolous. They have LOTS of legal backing. It is up to a judge/jury to figure out if the plaintiff is correct and by how much.
Since the RIAA/MPAA goes against people who give access to their servers (basically the people sharing the music, not downloading the music - unless I missed a case) I think it is VERY reasonable at 750$ per song. First and foremost it is never an even ratio when talking about penalties. When you break the law and you are paying for damages there are two - the base costs and the punitive damages. The base costs is the actual costs "We know you gave away 100 songs and at 1$/song that is $100). The punitive cost "For your malicious acts, you are being penalized an additional $50/song. If I setup a computer that ran 24/7 for a year - it is really not unreasonable that the songs would be downloaded a few hundred times...the fact they are ONLY charging 750$ is CHEAP! *You* may set the price at $1/song/download - but we are talking punitive damages for breaking the law which has historically jacked up the price.
There is no doubt that they lose money. You share one song and the sellers lost money on that one song. The jacked up prices are punitive damages. If you want to argue that punitive damages are not cool, then you just joined every single doctor/health insurer in the nation.
From a judges statement they participated in monopolistic actions. And frankly, I could care less if a judge says heroin is healthy and doing it twice a day will make your skin pale, and vibrant. Just cause a judge says something does not make it so. Let us not be too much of robots willing to bend to the word of one guy. The text-book definition of monopoly has not been violated...is what they did wrong and illegal - sure, is it a monopoly pfft - no it isn't. I don't love MS, I don't hate MS. I use some of their products and I use other OS just as well. I like competition, but these guys are not a monopoly...they will be a monopoly when they are the ONLY OS providers on the market.
Because monopoly means one, and well since I have the option of getting Mac OS, Linux OS, Unix OS, FreeBSD OS, etc then there really is no monopoly.
Businesses are allowed to encourage (ask) their vendors to only utilize their products - nothing is wrong with this. They can offer money and other incentives (i.e. for every copy of my product that you sell, I will give you a free apple). It becomes wrong when they use methods such as "only use our product, which is the number one product anyhow, or we will pull it from your shelves and you will lose 80% of your customer base".
Microsoft is recruiting two 'feet on the street' personnel whose role will be to provide proactive assistance during customer visits, and help you get the value proposition for pre-installed software and related services. Give us a call and let's get those feet walking
Two whole people. And they need to be called. So MS is offering it as a service and someone has to notify them. OK so I order my barebones PC and hope the company I bought it from doesnt call MS UK. And if two people show up to my door unannounced - they will receive the short end of my bobby stick (since UK are not allowed to carry guns if i am not mistaken) or I will press charges for tresspassing and have a restraining order issued.
I can't wait for someone to make a stand against them in court.
Anti-**AA lawyer "Your honor, I am making a stand in court"
Judge - "What is your stance"
Anti-**AA lawyer "To put restrictions on the **AA, a group who malignantly, vilely, evily, uncaringly, and in a mean spirited fashion sue people who pirate music/movies"
Judge - "Isn't pirating illegal, and punishable by law"
Anti-**AA lawyer "Well yes but..."
Judge - "Whats your point son"
Anti-**AA lawyer "The **AA do it malignantly, vilely, evily, uncaringly, and in a mean spirited fashion"
-Dead silence fills the court room.
Judge - "Get out"
This should be clear. "Which has" is singular, whereas "groups" is plural, so it couldn't be the antecedent. "The US" is singular, so it must have the veto. Now don't complain about the fact that "US" is an abbreviation for "United States". It's singular, I tell you.
:)
I am sure you are correct (not an English major), but what if all of the Christian Groups are given one veto? I still say it is a poorly worded statement. I am not an English expert, but I am above the average Joe. If it confused me, it probably confused others. Another way to look at it: in the UN the United States (your last sentence was funny) is given one vote. The United States represents a lot of people, and a lot of groups.
Is the original statement correct? As you pointed out, yes. Is it confusing, yes. Could it have been worded in a clearer fashion, yes.
Pressure from conservative Christian groups in the US, which has a veto over the internet addressing system
.xxx so we don't get their heathen, unholy smut on our computers." I wouldn't mind having an .xxx domain and relegating all the pr0n sites there.
Who has the veto power? Christian groups or the US? This sentence is confusing, though I would hope they meant US and not Christian.
Why are Christian groups opposed to this? I would think they would like this "great now we can just block anyone from
Yea well, if I don't think it is something "very very cool" I will be coming back for that "good money"
How can in one instance be:
MS Gives 60-Day Deadline to Web Devs
And the next few lines it is:
Microsoft has gotten a one-time, 60-day extension in which developers and companies can try to re-engineer their Web pages
See the headline is to draw our attention because it is the big, bad MS...but according to the body it is really the gov't was granting MS a chance to modify websites...MS is not giving a deadline to Web Devs, the courts are.... Bad journalism.
20 MBPs? That is really really really weak for any kind of enterprise level...even for backing up files that is weak....At 1.6 TB it would take a HELL of a long time to back-up all that data....generally companies, when they backup, want to be able to do it nightly within an hour or two. Obviously live back-ups can occur, but that is not as neat.